Setting the record straight with Saudi Arabia

December 13, 2001|By Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times News Service. Thomas L. Friedman is a syndicated columnist based in New York City.

Memo from: President Bush

To: Sheik Saleh al-Sheikh, Saudi Arabia's minister of Islamic affairs

Dear Minister: I'm sure you find it unusual to be receiving a letter from me. In the past, U.S. presidents have been interested in writing only the Saudi oil minister, because we just looked on Saudi Arabia as a big gas station to be pumped and defended but never to be taken seriously as a society. But we've learned from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 that you are the minister we need to talk with.

First, let me make something very clear: America has not suddenly decided to become anti-Saudi. There is no "Zionist" plot here to sour our relations. There's actually broad recognition here that Saudi Arabia has been a good ally. More important, we know it will be impossible for us to counter radical Islamism without Saudi help. Saudi Arabia is the keeper of the Muslim holy places and leader of the Islamic world; it finances thousands of Islamic schools and mosques around the globe; we can't be effective without you.

But having said all that, you would also be dead wrong to think there's no problem between us, or that the only thing you need is better PR and a few meetings with Washington elites to smooth things over. You have a problem with the American people, who, since Sept. 11, have come to fear that your schools, and the thousands of Islamic schools your government and charities are financing around the world, are teaching that non-Muslims are inferior to Muslims and must be converted or confronted.

I want to be sensitive here. We can't tell you how to teach your children, but we can tell you that in a wired world--in which tools for mass destruction are increasingly available to individuals--we need you to interpret Islam in ways that sanctify religious tolerance and the peaceful spread of your faith. If you can't do that then we will have a problem--then Saudi Arabia will become to our war on terrorism what the Soviet Union was to our war on Communism: the source of the money, ideology and people who are threatening us.

What encourages us is that you seem to understand that and are taking steps to curtail incitement in your mosques and media. I notice that Crown Prince Abdullah recently called on your country's leading clerics "to examine with restraint every word that leaves our mouths, [because] Allah has said in the Quran: `We have made you a moderate nation."' I also noticed that you told a group of Saudi religious leaders that "what is important here is for a centrist trend [in Islam] to grow gradually. If this trend grows rationally, other trends will become weak." And I was also heartened that Sheik al-Sabil, the imam of the Holy Mosque in Mecca, denounced the suicide killing of civilians as against Islamic law.

These are important words. We hope that they will enter your textbooks and classrooms

We understand that the issue of Palestine is also very important for you. But you can't come here and tell us that it must be America's business how Israel behaves, but it is none of our business how you behave, or what you teach, when 19 of your sons helped to kill 4,000 Americans. We do not want you as an enemy and we don't want a war with Islam. We want a war within Islam--a war against intolerance and extremism. We want you to be the voice for moderation that we and all Muslims will listen to. But we can only listen to what you say about us when you talk honestly about yourselves. Good luck.

Sincerely, George W. Bush--the first U.S. president who wants to be your friend, not just your customer.